Exploring Denial Strategies against Climate Change across Agents and Media Platforms

Abstract

Climate change represents a highly detrimental issue with long-term undesirable consequences on global humanity. Whilst concerted efforts are being made to curtail the effects of climate change, disinformation continues to be a significant obstacle to meaningful actions. Therefore, via content analysis, this study aims to explore the strategies employed by agents to deny the scientific evidence of climate change across media platforms. The data were gathered from a sample of two Malaysian online newspapers: The Star and New Straits Times. A total of 124 articles on climate change disinformation were gathered from the digital archives of the selected newspapers between August 2015 and October 2021 using “disinformation” and “climate change” as keywords. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the Chi-square test. The findings revealed that politicians, organizations, and anonymous agencies use more strategies to deny climate change compared with other agents such as academics, business tycoons, and celebrities. Additionally, social media, broadcast media, and online news represent the most frequently used platforms to deny climate change. These outcomes suggest the critical role of politics in sabotaging the efforts against climate change disinformation. This study could provide governments and activists with useful information to help mitigate disinformation against climate change.